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For undisclosed reasons that are probably only in my head, partway through Theodosia's second adventure I started being reminded of the American Girl series. Theodosia is a great character, smart, brave, and resourceful, and the fantasy elements are well-done and unique. What tripped me up was that I could never figure out how I was supposed to feel about Theodosia's parents. It's the classic kid-adventure dilemma: the parents have to be dim or uncaring enough to let the life-threatening adventure take place, when, as Katherine Paterson points out, it's the job of capable and well-meaning parents to *stop* anything like that from happening. But in a lighthearted adventure, the parents can't be too depressingly horrible. To me, Theodosia's parents wavered among "loving but absentminded," "comic-relief buffoons" and "cruel and uncaring." It distracted me from the rest of the otherwise terrific story.

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R.L. LaFevers (Robin Lorraine when she’s in really big trouble) grew up surrounded by shelves of old dusty books and a passel of brothers. She has also spent a large portion of her life being told she was making up things that weren’t there, which only proves she was destined to write fiction. She is the author of over fourteen books for young readers, including THEODOSIA AND THE SERPENTS OF CHAOS, (Houghton Mifflin, 2007) which received starred reviews and was a Junior Library Guild selection, a Booksense Summer Pick, and nominated for the Malice Domestic’s Agatha Award, and the NATHANIEL FLUDD, BEASTOLOGIST series. Her first young adult novel, GRAVE MERCY, will be published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in Spring of 2012. She currently lives with her husband and a demonic cat in Southern California and spends her days gazing longingly at ancient artifacts or wallowing in old forgotten texts.